Choice Group Seminar by Silvia Milano (LMU Munich/University of Exeter): ‘Recommender systems and epistemic polarisation’

Abstract: Recommender systems increasingly serve as essential tools to navigate vast expenses of information. Yet, their proliferation in our everyday lives has raised concern over their potential magnification of social polarisation through the creation of echo chambers and filter bubbles, the exact nature and influence of which has been controversial. If, when, and how recommender systems affect polarization remains an open question. In this talk, I will first introduce a class of agent-based models which have previously been used to derive general insights on polarization in epistemic networks. They serve as a kind of ‘’epistemic best-case scenario’’ where perfectly rational agents engage in evidence-driven truth seeking and information sharing. Prior work has shown that, even in these best-case models, polarization can arise under certain circumstances. I will then present the results of joint work with Lux Miranda, where we generalise these models to study how recommender systems might impact the emergence of epistemic polarisation. We find that, when agents use a recommender system to guide information sharing, the frequency at which polarization occurs always either remains the same or strictly worsens versus the non-recommender control treatments. Our results suggest that engineering recommender systems to prevent or slow down the rate of polarisation may be a bigger challenge than previously thought – and perhaps even impossible. I will close by considering the implications of our results for the design and governance of recommender systems, and possible avenues for future work.

Silvia Milano is a am a Senior Lecturer in Philosophy in the SPA Department and Egenis centre at the University of Exeter. Between November 2023 and April 2025, she will be a Humboldt Fellow at the LMU Munich, based at the Munich Centre for Mathematical Philosophy. 

This event will take place in person on LSE’s campus. However, those unable to attend in person will have the option of taking part online.

To join online just follow these instructions:

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• Zoom link for this for this meeting: https://lse.zoom.us/j/6613924533 

Please note that these events are routinely recorded, with the edited footage being made publicly available on our website and YouTube channel. We will only record the audio, the slides and the speaker and will not include the Q&A section. However, any question asked during the talk itself will feature in the final edit.